Adventure Awaits

“Oh, so you are a city girl?”

I hesitate. Yes? 

I was born in downtown Chicago and lived there much of my young childhood, bouncing around to the suburbs, then to Cincinnati, and back again, finally landing in Columbus, Ohio for my middle school and high school years. After graduating college, I worked for a marketing agency with offices in many large cities across the globe. I was based out of the Michigan Avenue offices, but was traveling often so I lived in an apartment in Indianapolis. Then, I got married to Adam and moved to his small hometown. And, when I say “small,” it’s small. Its population is less than the number of students in my high school. 

For a long time my identity was being a city girl in the country. It was how I framed this blog when I started it in 2013. It was also how I framed our business and even still use the line about it’s population compared to my high school as an opener is tasked with presenting our story.

May marked our ten year wedding anniversary, but also my own anniversary–My anniversary of moving too Russiaville.

Adam moved here when he was six and, outside of the college years and a short stint in Indy post grad, he has lived on the same 40 acres we live on now. As a girl who moved a lot in her first twenty four years and lived in a lot of places not like Russiaville, Indiana it’s weird to realize that of all those places, I have now lived here in this tiny town longer than anywhere else.

I have written about this before, but it is still kind of weird because little Russiaville is the place people would have least expected me to be for even just a short stint, let alone put down roots.

A couple months before our wedding, I picked up my sister from Notre Dame for her Spring Break and we swung into Russiaville before heading to my apartment in Indy. We got out the of the car and Kerry looked around. I could read the look on her face. The March landscape of rural Indiana is underwhelming at best and so was Adam’s property as it sat empty for a few years after his parents moved to Indy.

“What?” I pressed.

“I don’t know,” Kerry considering her words as she took in the surroundings. “It’s just… I kind of always imagined you more in a high rise apartment in, like, New York or something.”

I’d imagined it, too. I was raised on How to Lose a Guy In Ten Days and The Devil Wears Prada and I interned in– and really liked– LA. I saw myself in a city. Riding in cabs or in an office high in the sky. At Happy Hours and walking to get coffee’s. On dates, working long hours, and meeting all sorts of funky, fantastic people. It would be a big adventure.

I saw people live this, marking their moves to big cities with going away parties, images of champagne on Facebook, and many iterations of: “Let the adventure begin!” Even Kerry has a picture posed in front of a U-Haul truck sharing her move to employer’s New York offices to be closer to the man who would become her husband.

My move to the country was quieter, no celebration or declaration of a big adventure. But, in its own way, it was the same kind of adventure. I have made it all into a narrative over the years to help string the threads of how being lonely and lost in the country led to blogging and a garden which led to an actual farm business. I have been able to make it cute, lacing in the line about the population compared to the student body at my high school, further driving home an exciting change and embarking on something new.

As humans, we like narrative. It helps us make sense of everything that happens. There is also a touch of hope in a narrative that things will work out, even if not in the immediate present, eventually. It also feeds in to our natural storytelling abilities and, really, what’s a good story if there isn’t a little adventure? And, we really love adventure.

We love travel, new businesses, new cities and moves that will change our lives. We celebrate and dream about picking up and starting over, calling it “brave” and “bold.” There are countless quotes about adventure and if you are looking for ideas for a wedding shower, baby shower or nursery, Pinterest has you covered in all your “Adventure” theme needs.

But here is the thing, eventually the big, adventurous move just becomes the place you live.

The shine of newness fades and the encouraging, “You are so brave,” stops. You have good days, some bad ones too. The minutiae of life comes in– work, school, dinner, laundry– creating routine. And, for the most part, the cast of characters is set. It’s no longer different, it’s just your life.

And, you start wondering can you still claim the identity from the life before? Or, are you just “from” here now?

I also start wondering that we are telling couples, grads, even new babies and perhaps even ourselves in all the “Adventure Awaits” and “The world is waiting for you” messaging that life, living and all its minutiae is less then.

There is a place for adventure, of course. And, I am going to do my best to encourage curiosity and exploration in my kids and even in my own days. But also, work to drive home the importance of always making your own magic along the way and no matter where you are. If you can find some beauty and something great in less tangible ways than big moves, life really will be a grand adventure.

I heard this best brought to life recently in a commencement speech that Kelly Corrigan gave to The Walker School. In her address, she tells the students to ask questions, be curious and to remember that everyone has great stories. If you don’t connect and chat with people, you could miss out on some of the greatest stories you could ever hear.

But, then she shared a line that stopped me mid laundry folding: “A great life is just a collection of great days.”

That is all it is.

Talk about taking the pressure off big, bold grand adventures.

So, am I a city girl?

Or, a country girl?

Neither.

I just live here. And, do my best to make some magic in the minutiae.

This post is part of a blog hope with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series “Minutiae.”